Saviours of Science
by delticminer
Summary: 15 years after Chell left Aperture, Doug Rattman is still living in the facility, living in the same conditions he has been for all these years. He is being watched though, and this observer could determine the future of Aperture. Rated T for language.
1. Prolouge

**A/N: This is my first fan fiction, any comments/tips/suggestions/improvements would be appreciated.**

PROLOUGE

Wheatley never liked space. The moment he knew what it was, "Oh, don't like that at all. Too dark and too big. Too many stars for my liking." The last thing he wanted to happen was being stranded for 15 years in space. Above anything else it was mind-numbingly boring. There were only four interesting things within sight zone, apart from stars and space. One was the lunar surface a few kilometres down. Another was the beautiful blue sphere of the Earth, where humans, and alas, where he came from, Aperture lay. Then there was the sun, the only light, shining brightly and reflecting off everything, including Wheatley. And then there was:

"SPAACCCEEE!"

Wheatley sighed. His only company happened to be a similar core to himself, obsessed with space in every way.

"I'm in Space, ohmygodohmygodohmygod, I'm in SPACE!"

"Yes, mate, you are in space. I got the picture 15 years ago." As usual the space core ignored him and kept blabbering on about space, and how brilliant it was, and how many stars there were, and what that blue thing on the moons surface was- wait, what?

"Spaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa-" The space core was hit by an inrush of debris and was sent out far beyond the lunar orbit.

Wheatley fought against the debris, trying to get to the portal, when suddenly everything was powerfully sucked back in, including Wheatley. He went straight through the portal and into the pneumatic diversity tube, and was plopped back out after 10 seconds. Dazed, he looked around. He was in Aperture. Fair enough, expected, since it was a portal. What was strange was that instead of _her _in the central core position, some crap piece of PSS technology was in its place.

"What is this thing"

As Wheatley looked around, he saw two humans. One in casual clothes, a tall man with dark hair and a small moustache, the other wearing a lab coat and with extremely long hair and a beard. The latter man had a portal gun in his hand, which explained the portal. Next to that man was a companion cube, seemingly covered with core apparatus.

Then the companion cube, or at least what seemed to be the companion cube, spoke.

What was strange, was that it was _her _voice.

"It's the moron."

Wheatley could not resist replying to that.

"I AM NOT A MORON!"


	2. The Unfortunate Discovery

_Three days earlier_

The two robots ran along the seemingly endless corridor, filled with obstacles such as turrets and hazardous drops. The two handled it with ease. There were two of them: the male was short, with a fat circular body, and a single blue eye; the female tall and with a thin egg shaped body, with an orange eye. They both emitted chirps to communicate, the blue one having slightly deeper tones to the chirps. As they tested, they had two overviewers; one they knew they had, and one no-one else knew about. One was GLaDOS, the central core and leader of the Aperture facility. She spoke with a plain, yet annoyed voice.

"If you were doing well, I would tell you you are doing well. Problem is you aren't, so I can't"

It was lucky for the robots that this kind of stuff was programmed to fly right over their heads. The other overviewer was a tall man in a dirt old lab coat, with long black hair and a long beard. He had a Weighted Companion Cube at his feet.

"Doug, we have to get moving" said the Companion Cube

"Wait one moment, Charla" replied Doug Rattman

"I have to wait, I haven't got any legs, remember? I'm a cube!"

"Fine. Let's go."

Doug hoisted his beloved cube onto his back and he started walking. There was no part of the facility Doug had not made a den in, and he frequently found old ones to rest in. This was beginning to get tiresome, he needed to find a way out, and he needed to do it fast. The two robots continued testing, the female throwing a storage cube over to the male. Doug sighed. He envied the two robots. Never had they been attacked with neurotoxin, and they could never die from testing. He had only lived for 200 odd years through cryogenic suspension, and simply scavenging to survive. Oh, how he longed to escape. The only chance he had had he gave up to save the life of his daughter, whom he had shadowed for years before and after. And when she left 15 years ago, unaware of his existence, he was stuck surviving on water and stale bread, and keeping sane by scrawling pictures on the wall. His companion cube also kept him sane; if it were not for her, he would have gone to the turrets at a long time ago.

"Hey, hey, Doug what's that?"

Those were the words that started it all.

"It's a portal gun" said Doug, with hope in his eyes.

"So we can escape?" asked Charla

"Yeah" smiled Doug

He picked it up, and his smile quickly changed to disappointment as he found out it was only a single portal device, not the dual-issue. Still, it was better than nothing.

"I see you, Doug. Don't think you can hide from me" said a voice. It had a deep British Surrey accent, and the voice's owner's hands were holding a pair of large binoculars. "You are walking to your doom"

"There you are" said a turret

It was lucky Doug was a quick thinker: he threw Charla off his back and in front of him, so the turret's bullets simply bounced off her.

"Hey! Watch it!" said Charla.

"You know why I'm doing it" said Doug franticly. He had a sweet-sounding devil to contend with, which was frankly more important than whether his companion cube got a few more bullet marks to add to the many hundred. Doug edged closer to the turret, and with a single move, he threw Charla round and smashed it to oblivion.

It let off a little sigh and said "I don't hate you."

Doug sighed in relief. The turret attacks were getting more frequent: something told him this was going to become a much more regular thing. He sighed, put Charla back on his back, and started walking again. To his surprise, he turned a corner and saw a portal. An orange one, sitting there, with no blue one to continue the portal. Then Doug remembered: the portal gun. Doug shot a portal up to a ledge and went through. There was a door on the ledge, and through that door was an elevator. To his disbelief, it was going up.

"Could this be it?"

"Possibly, Doug. It could be a trap though, so don't let yourself go off guard."

Doug stepped out the elevator when it stopped, and walked through the bluey substance of the emancipation grille. Luckily, Charla was one of the very few companion cubes built for long term use, and was not vaporised. Doug was so confused he let his guard down: he stepped out of the elevator into the one room where he did not want to be:

The Central AI Chamber.

Charla was right. It was a trap.

And GLaDOS had been expecting him.

"Hello, Mr Rattman. Nice of you to come and catch up, I suppose it's been what, 200 years since we last spoke?

"No..."

"Oh, yes. You fell for it. Now I have a human test subject again."  
>The moment that sentence was finished, the floor opened up under Doug and he started falling. Falling far, far down, much further than he would have been before. This was it. This was his nightmare. He was starting to test.<p> 


	3. Now You're Thinking with Portals

If there was anything Doug P Rattman hated more than anything else, it was portals. He hated them. He hated the gun. He hated the look of them. He hated the noise. And worse of all, he hated the smell. And if there was anything, Doug didn't want to do, was constantly use them with no breaks.

"Here come the test results. Hmmm. Low. But then again, what did you honestly expect? High?"

"Maybe if you stopped putting me down, I would do better"

"You know what I liked about your daughter? She didn't speak. It was very handy, especially since she looked like she wanted to yell swearwords and worse at me sometimes.

"OK, then. Be sad I'm not her. So SHUT UP, YOU F*CKING B*TCH!"

"Point made. You can talk. And let's face it, I can't make this much harder for you. So how about this, YOU ARE FAT AND ADOPTED."

Doug turned and looked, confused.

"I'm neither?"

"I know, but it puts your spirits down. Anyway, I don't pay you to talk, I pay you to test.

Doug looked even more confused.

"You don't pay me. What ARE you on about?"

"I pay you with the knowledge that you have a little less time before you die. Now get on with it.

"Touche" said Doug quietly, and he began testing.

Charla sighed. "You two have been arguing for hours. Just give it a rest already!"

GLaDOS only needed to say one word to that: "No."

Doug sighed. "I have been trying!"

"Oh shut up and test" retorted GLaDOS.

Doug's unknown observer laughed.

"Oh, Doug you have changed since we last met. How could you have fallen into that trap?"  
>He lit a cigar and took one deep puff.<p>

"This is going to be one fun encounter, that is for sure."

Doug had tested before: but not this with level of difficulty and danger. This test had Turrets, Faith Plates, Lazers and Hard Light Bridges, combined with repulsion and propulsion gels. Doug jumped onto a faith plate, caught a Discouragement Redirection Cube, threw it into place in the lazer's path, and landed on the Hard Light Bridge. He then jumped onto some repulsion gel, straight onto the platform at the finish, with the open door to greet him.

"Very good." GLaDOS had an element of boredom in her voice. "You completed the test. Go on to the next test straight away.

"You don't care that I'm having to risk my life, just to satisfy your little itch"

"No. Of course I don't."

If Charla had eyes, she would be rolling them. She had been listening to them argue for hours, maybe even days. It was getting tiresome already: she annoyed that companion cubes couldn't turn themselves off: it would make the next 60 years much more bearable. She was playing eye-spy all by herself, but it wasn't very interesting.

"I spy with my little optic, something beginning with P," she thought, slowly.  
>Charla sighed again. "Portal."<p>

"I spy with my little optic, something beginning with H."

Charla suddenly clocked. H? What begins with H?

"Human" she said. She swore she had seen a human through a window. He had gone by the time she realised, but she knew she saw one.

His cover was beginning to be blown.

Doug's companion cube had appeared to have seen him. He just had to hope the companion cube couldn't speak, although he was guessing it could, otherwise Doug wouldn't be carrying the heavy box on his back.

"Oh, Doug. It was a pleasure knowing you before. I hope you have the sense to join me now."

"Doug?"

Doug did not stop and talk.

"Doug!"

"What?"

"I think I saw a human."

"Charla. Really. A human."

"Yes!"

"Down here? In Aperture?"

"Yes!"

"Forgive me, if I don't believe you first time."

They were interrupted by GLaDOS. "Get testing..."

Doug ran into the test chamber, only for his companion cube to be yanked off his back, and above an incinerator.

"Charla!"

"You are starting to get slow. Maybe you need an incentive. Here's one: if you don't complete this test in 3 minutes, your precious companion cube will be incinerated.

Doug was shocked. He quickly looked for the solution. The room had a large number of angled panels, and an aerial faith plate. The idea was to obviously jump on the fait plate, then use the momentum to go through portals and to the exit. Only there were a large number of panels, seemingly all of which required a portal placement to get to the exit.

"That's one minute gone."

Doug couldn't wait any longer. He jumped onto the faith plate, and shot the portals. The complicated placements were a task, but Doug made it over. He smashed his hand onto the button, and Charla was thrown over to his feet.

"Are you alright?" asked Doug.

"Yeah, I think so," replied Charla.

He couldn't wait any longer. He had to act now.

"Hey, up here!"

Doug looked up.

"Kellan?" he said in disbelief.

"Alright, mate. How are you doing? Actually, don't answer that, because it takes up time we need to start RUNNING LETS GO!"


	4. The Corrupted Core

This is why GLaDOS hated humans. They always wanted to escape, for reasons she couldn't comprehend. And now, some human had helped Doug escape. Perfect. Now she had two humans and a companion cube running through her facility. She hated it when that happened.

"Why did you have to do that?" she said over the loudspeaker.

Doug looked up, but Kellan spoke first.

"Oh, shut up."

"And who may you be."

"Scientist John Kellan, Aperture Employee #5839. One of the very few you didn't kill."

"Ah, yes, that incident. You brought that upon yourselves you know"

Kellan laughed. "Did we now?"

"I hate to interrupt," said Doug. "But, where are we going."

"Central AI Chamber. We're taking her down."

Doug swallowed. He had been wanting to do that for 15 years. Now was his chance.

"How?"

"We can force a core transfer. We'll get one of the corrupted ones from the core bin, the system will automatically repair it, if it can repair it."

As they arrived at the core bin, Doug had to cover his ears.

"Pick one up, don't be picky" said Kellan, wanting to get out.

Doug picked up one with an orange optic;

"Who are you?" it asked.

"Lets go..." said Kellan.

When they could actually hear again, they looked at the core they chose.

"What is that? Where are we going? Is that a gun? Ooooh, that thing has numbers on it."

Kellan seemed happy. "Not too corrupted. Could be repaired easily."

"Ooooohhh, whats in here?"

Doug hoisted the corrupted core onto his back, much to Charla's annoyance.

"Who are you?"

"Wel-"

"What is that?"

"It's a hea-"

"Ooooh... what's this?"

"It's a c-"

"Who are you"

"You alread-"

"What is that?"

"Oh shu-"

"Oooh... that thing has numbers on it."

"No it doesn-"

"Who are you"

"Oh for g-"

GLaDOS was getting annoyed. "Whatever you think you are doing, it's not working."

Kellan looked up. "Really."

"Yes," said GLaDOS.

"You think," muttered Doug.

"Seriously though, what are you doing?" enquired GLaDOS.

"We are doing none-of-a-destructive-nosy-AI's-business." replied Kellan

"Ha-ha. Mr Kellan. You should think about a career in stand-up comedy. It's a much, much better job than helping test subjects destroy this facility.

"I'll think about it," said Kellan, to Doug's surprise. "Thought about it - no." Doug relaxed.

"What's that?"

"Oh shut up"

Charla's surprise that she was able to complete a sentence was overwhelmed by more annoyance within a second.

"Ooooh, what's in here?"

"SHU-"

"Where are we going?"

"OH MY G-"

"What is that?"

"SHUT THE F-"

"Who are you?"

Two little robots slept inside a facility. One short and male, the other tall and female, they slept.

GLaDOS had a trick up her sleeve. If she had a sleeve. And those humans would regret meddling with her.


	5. Those Days of Aperture

_1987_

_Aperture Science_

"Hey!" shouted John. "Doug!"

Doug turned. "Oh, hi, John"

"Where ya going?" John was very laid back.

"Uh, secret meeting. Very secret. Secretist thing ever."

"Doug, I am on the GLaDOS project."

"Oh. Yeah. Forget."

There was a bang as equipment fell of a trolley further up the corridor. Doug suddenly got scared and turned quickly.

"Doug, it's equipment falling off a trolley. Relax."

"Right. Yeah. Relax. I'll try. If possible."

John sighed.

The meeting room was small. The 12 scientists in the GLaDOS project was there. That included Doug Rattman and John Kellan. At the head of the table, the legendary Cave Johnson was sat down. Cave was dying. The years of hard work, plus the moon rock poisoning was driving him to his grave. Any other man would have retired to Lancashire in England, and lived the next years of his life happily and peacefully, but not Cave. Sitting next to him was his secretary, Caroline Smith. She was a relatively young woman, having started work with Cave at a very early age. She was in her mid-thirties, after twenty years as the second highest person in the company, everyone knew she was only years away from being CEO. Cave cleared his throat.

"Good morning, scientists. After ten years, we have finalised our plans for the GLaDOS AI project. This is it. We hope to have our first prototype Genetic Lifeform and Disk Operating System in operation within two years. Unfortunately, as you may know, I will probably not be alive to see it happen if I can carry on like this. Now I want to see my project come into fruition, even it means I have to see it as Aperture's guest, rather than the CEO. Therefore, I will be retiring at the end of this month. I'm sure Caroline can handle the position very well, maybe even better than I have. I'm also sure that Caroline will make sure this project will go ahead and perform well. Now, as one of my final acts, I am splitting this group into two. Researching and carrying out the engineering side of this will be F. Markswell, G. Nerkston, H. Unicorn, R. Burton, S. Rinswell and J. Kennington. On the scientific research side will be G. Willington, T. Camden, Z. Totteridge, R. Brent, J. Kellan and D. Rattman. You know what to do, gentlemen. Now get to work, and let's hope we can get this project finished in time."

After the usual round of applause, they would have liked to get to work, but it was time to get home. The meeting room cleared, leaving only Cave, Caroline and Doug. Cave said a few words to Caroline, and she nodded. Cave left, and then Doug and Caroline went up to each other. Caroline looked worried.

"Doug, what are we going to do?"

"I don't know, love."

"If Cave retires, I will have to take over as CEO. If I do that, I won't have time to look after Chell." Saying this, she looked down at her belly, which was noticeably larger.

"You will have time. Cave does a ton of crazy things as well as being CEO. For god's sake, he spends half of his free time donating to charity, just to upstage Black Mesa!"

"But that's Cave, not me. He's wrong you know, I won't be half of the good CEO he is, let alone better."

"Cave would have died within the year if he wasn't retiring now. We should be thankful that he is going to live longer.

"But what about Chell?"

Doug looked down. "I don't know. I just don't know."

"I won't have time, and you are going to be tangled up in this GLaDOS project by the time she'll be born. What are we going to do? Neither of us want her in an orphanage."

"We may have no choice", said Doug sadly.

"That's what I'm afraid of," sighed Caroline. She started to cry. "Doug, what are we going to do?"

"I'll sort it out, don't worry." 

_1992_

_Woodland Road Orphanage_

The orphanage staff had no doubt: Chell Rattman was the most troublesome four year old that had ever been in their orphanage. Little did they know she had the genes of an intelligent, inventive and smart secretary and a paranoid schizophrenic. Nurse Rebbecca had been looking everywhere for her.

"Chell? Where are you?"

The voice behind her surprised her. "That's a good question."

Rebbecca's first instinct was anger. "Who the hell are you? And what are you doing in here?"

The man looked like a secret agent. "I'm only authorised to tell you that I am from Aperture Laboratories, and we want Chell Rattman. As both her parents worked for us, under Aperture Contract #5920, she belongs to us. Now find me the child, and I will be on my way."

Rebbecca would talk, but she was lost for words.

"Oh, and incase you disagree-" He was interrupted by Rebbecca being hit by poison dart, and falling unconscious. "We took care of it." Chell walked out of her hiding place.

"Who are you?" she asked.

The man smiled. "I'm your friend. Come with me."

Chell was only four, and didn't know better. "Okay." she said. And then the agent and Chell walked away.


	6. The Fall of Science

"Turrets! Dive" yelled Kellan

Doug and Kellan dived into cover as turrets came down from the ceiling.

"There you are."

"Target Locked."

Doug and Kellan managed to get out of the way in time by the time it rained bullets. As soon as the firing stopped, Doug and Kellan had time to think.

"Target Lost."

"Are you still there?"

Doug panted. "Now what are we going to do?"

Kellan responded and taking Charla off Doug's back.

"THANK YOU! THANK YOU!" she yelled.

"Get behind me" Kellan said to Doug. He then threw Charla in front of him and Doug, and they walked across the hallway.

"There you are.

"Preparing to dispense product."

"NO NO NO DON'T SHOOT!" yelled Charla in disbelief!

"Go! Go!" yelled Kellan above the noise.

"OWOWOWOWOWOWOWOWOWOW!" cried Charla! "STOPSTOPSTOPSTOP!"

They got to the other side of the hallway, out of the way of the turrets.

"WHY. THE. HELL. DID. YOU. DO. THAT" yelled a particularly bruised companion cube at Kellan.

"Every man for himself." he laughed. He then proceeded to put her on Doug's back again.

"NONONONONO, don't do that!" she cried. "Why don't you carry the corrupt core?" Anything to get away from Curious.

Kellan sighed. "OK. I guess being with a corrupt core is bad enough. Kellan took Curious from Doug's back and hoisted it onto him. "Let's go, Doug."

After what seemed like hours walking, they finally arrived at where they wanted to arrive. The Central AI Chamber.

"So, you found me. Congratulations. Did you know that, despite your violent behaviour, all you have managed to break so far, is a couple of turrets and a walkway."

"Yeah actually," said Doug.

"Oh, really?" asked GLaDOS. "I didn't think humans had the brain power."

"Well, we do," said Kellan. "We also have the brain power to bring you down."

GLaDOS raised virtual eyebrows. "And how do you propose to do that?"

Kellan said nothing at that point. He ran up to a control point. Doug proceeded to plug Curious into a core port.

"What are you doing?"

"Saving our lives."

Doug then went to Kellan, who was trying to initiate a core transfer,

"It's not working..." said GLaDOS impatiently.

Doug cried out in alarm. "Turrets!" They both jumped out of the way to find cover.

"There you are."

"Target acquired."

Doug only just managed to get behind a wall when the firing began.

"While you may have the integrity to get this far, humans always forget something very important: turrets." Doug looked around for a solution. He saw an excursion funnel towards the top of the building. He shot a portal there, and one right next to the turrets. They were carried away, and when they were above the pit, Doug hit the 'Remove all portals' button on the gun.

"Whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy?" asked a falling turret.

"Got no choice luv," replied Kellan, who popped out from his hiding place and got back to work.

"Stop it," cried out GLaDOS. "Stop it!"

"Core transfer process initiated," said the announcer.

"No!" cried GLaDOS again. It was clear that Kellan wasn't listening.

Kellan turned to Doug. "I'll bring an escape elevator down for you. It was nice seeing you again, mate."

"I'll see you around, Kellan."

Doug picked up Charla and turned to walk away. As he walked down the steps to the elevator, he heard Kellan speak again. "Hey.. Doug"

Doug turned around, and immediately was kicked in the face. He fell down the stairs and landed at the bottom.

"No..."

"Don't worry, Doug. I'm not working for her. Unfortunately, I'm not working for you either. I'm working for the Primary Science Society."

"You work for them? Jeez, Black Mesa are better than them."

"WHAT?" screamed GLaDOS. "YOU WORK FOR THE PSS?" she cried in disbelief.

Kellan sighed. "I didn't want to have to do this, Doug. You were a good friend." Kellan raised a pistol. "But times change."

Doug was furious. "I trusted you."

Kellan had a look of sadness on his face. "I know. And that's why I'm sorry."

"Wait," said a voice.

Kellan turned. "What it is, ma'am?"

"Who are you?" asked Curious

The AI turned to face her. "I am the Master Disk Operating System. And you are in my port."

"What's a port?"

MaDOS stopped. "Kellan, please remove this... thing."

Kellan pulled Curious out of the port, and MaDOS inserted herself in.

"Substitute core, are you ready to start the procedure?" chimed the announcer.

"Sure, why not," said MaDOS.

"Corrupted core, are you ready to start the procedure?" chimed the announcer.

"NO!NONONONONONONO!" cried GLaDOS.

"Stalemate detected. Stalemate resolution associate, please press the stalemate resolution button."

"Kellan, go press the button." said MaDOS.

"No! Don't!" said GLaDOS desperately.

Doug didn't know what to do. He was willing to help the PSS if it meant stopping GLaDOS, but he knew he would almost certainly be killed once this was over. In any case, he couldn't do anything anyway. Kellan was on the other side of the chamber and when he kicked Doug, it caused much worse injuries than he let on. He had left his portal gun by the console, so he had no choice but to play it out.

"Stalemate resolved."

GLaDOS was torn down by the transfer equipment, and that ugly piece of PSS crap was placed into the mainframe.

"There we go, Kellan. It's done. Alright boys, you can come out now," said MaDOS.

Two smaller PSS AIs came out.

"How we doing?"

"What's up, beardy?"

They sounded distinctly like defective turrets.

Without warning, Charla was suddenly pulled into a port, and dropped down into some machinery.

"NO!" cried Doug. He turned to face Kellan. "YOU B*RST*RD!"

Doug could tell this was hurting Kellan. He was telling the truth about not wanting to have to do it to Doug. "Your cube will be fine."

Charla was thrown out again, with the usual core sustaining equipment attached to her. Doug didn't have to be Albert Einstein to work out that that PSS crap had pushed GLaDOS into his companion cube. He didn't think twice.

He ignored his injuries.

He leapt over to the console.

He grabbed his portal gun.

He shot a portal beneath MaDOS.

And he shot up. To the moon.

A portal opened. On the moon.

And there was the greatest force pulling him out. Doug and Kellan managed to hold on, in time for MaDOS to bring a diversity vent above the portal. Everything was sucked back in all of a sudden. Doug had been holding on to a railing, and had been suspended a metre above the ground. He abruptly fell back down. Kellan took the hint, and grabbed the portal gun of Doug, and closed all portals. MaDOS threw all the debris out the vent including one Aperture Science Personality Core. It had a blue optic, and Doug had a sick feeling who it was.

Kellan spoke first. "What is this thing?"

GLaDOS then spoke. "It's the moron."

Then Wheatley (GLaDOS calling it the moron confirmed Doug's suspicions) spoke. "I am not a moron!" Everyone looked at him. "Uh, I mean, Hi. So anyway, what's going on. Could someone please explain?"


End file.
